Britons seem to have lost faith in the NHS for sound reasons
Anecdotes aren’t data (as the apparently oft-misquoted saying goes), but over the past 14 years the two paint a depressingly similar picture of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). A friend recently diagnosed with breast cancer was told she needed surgery to remove a small tumour. It took months for her general practitioner to refer her for testing after she initially complained of unexplained weight loss and later pain.
The operation was scheduled and cancelled several times. There were junior doctor strikes. It was a weekend.
The right equipment wasn’t in place. She heard various explanations. Unwilling to wait further, she used her savings to fund the surgery privately—by the same consultant (as surgeons are known in the UK) who was scheduled to operate in the NHS hospital.
By then, some 10 months had passed since she first called her GP and the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, requiring more extensive surgery. Her prognosis is uncertain. The story of the NHS over the past 14 years might be called ‘The Big Wait’ or even ‘The Big Short’ (if that title weren’t already taken).
More than 7.5 million people are awaiting treatment, up from an already high 4.43 million before the pandemic. The service is short of doctors, nurses, beds, radiographers, scanners and more. There are hospitals in such a state of disrepair that they are unsafe.
Many British doctors are opting to practice abroad or leaving the state system. The Big Wait means higher costs, in terms of festering health problems, the mental toll of uncertainty and the productivity loss from lives on hold. It has contributed to a stark rise in the number of people who are economically inactive due to ill health and an uptick in excess deaths.
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